


Rejoice in the Sun

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Multi, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-02-28 04:42:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: A fix-it for the ending of Endgame...Or, what happens to a world that's suffered two major apocalypses in five years.THIS FIC ON HIATUS UNTIL I STOP HATING IT. (probably a result of worrying about it while I was sick, I now pretty much hate everything I've written that's not currently posted. So... on HIATUS for a while. Sorry)





	1. Don't Let the Sun (Go Down on Me)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'll have various tags in the notes, because I know that spoilers would be in the tags. As stuff happens, there will be additional tags added.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gets a call from someone unexpected...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't Let the Sun (Go Down on Me), Elton John

“Peter? Peter, please answer me.”

Peter Parker looked up from his history textbook. He had an AP test next week and he didn’t mean to fail it. He was already five years behind, he didn’t need things to get any worse. Without acknowledging the suit’s AI -- Karen -- he threw a pillow onto it, muffling the voice.

He didn’t want to talk to Karen.

He didn’t want to be Spider-Man.

He wanted to be a kid, going to school, finishing high school, applying to colleges, and pretending that nothing had, in fact, happened in the few minutes that he’d known something was going very, very wrong.

There had been pain, and he couldn’t breathe, and Mr. Stark looked so sad, and--

“Peter!”

The voice was muffled, but without the suit’s dampening field to surround him and keep his senses dialed down to a reasonable 6 or 7 except when he needed them, he could still hear her.

It was tempting to just leave the room, go study on the sofa.

Except then he’d be in the same room as Aunt May, who sometimes looked like she wanted to say something. And who also looked somehow older. She’d gotten some gray hair in the years that he’d been gone, and he understood that, he did, but every time he had to look at her, or see the way that she looked at him, he was reminded that he’d died, he’d died and he couldn’t even remember it.

And then Mr. Stark had died. And Peter remembered that, all too clearly.

He sniffled and wiped his eyes furiously on the sleeves of his shirt. He wasn’t going to cry about this again, he wasn’t. The therapists all over New York City were booked for months, he needed to just get it together. “And what do we say to the god of death,” Peter said. “Not today.”

His aunt would be furious that he’d binge watched _Game of Thrones_ over the last few days, instead of sleeping, but he needed that gloriously horrible world to remind him that this world still existed. Strange dichotomy, but since he wasn’t going to sleep, he could at least mourn for Starks that weren’t real.

“Peter--”

“Karen, fine, fine, what, what do you want, what do you possible think--”

“Mr. Parker?” A vaguely familiar woman said. “If I might spare a moment of your time, I want to talk to you about the boss.”

“What?”

“This is Friday, Mr. Parker,” she said. “We’ve spoken before. Karen has my signal. Please come at once.”

“I have an AP test to study for,” Peter whined.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Friday said, and for just a moment, he remembered Mr. Stark saying something very close to that exact phrase, when Peter offered up the excuse of homework to avoid going to Germany. _If I didn’t go with him, what a difference that would have made in my life._

For a moment, Peter was paralyzed by the guilt he felt; if he hadn’t gotten to know Mr. Stark, he would have still been Snapped out of existence. He would still be struggling with some sense of normalcy in the world -- just like everyone else. But would he have this stone of grief and regret around his neck?

On the other hand, Peter couldn’t have asked for a better friend, a better mentor. A better… (father) hero than Tony Stark.

Maybe he owed it to the man’s legacy to see what Friday wanted.

This last time.

“All right, Karen,” he said. “Let’s suit up.”

Swinging through the city was… strangely comforting. He hadn’t been in his suit in a while, and it felt sort of like being. Home. In a way that being in his room just didn’t feel anymore.

He wasn’t quite riding the edge of fear and head rush like he used to, but his grief was a little less. Maybe he could take a patrol once in a while. See if he could help. Maybe helping other people would help him. A little.

Karen directed him to a warehouse out on the end of the island, pretty far out from his normal patrol range. There was nothing there, it was empty and abandoned. A lot of things still were as people tried to get used to this new reality where some people came back and some people hadn’t. The Snap had claimed fifty percent. The Aftermath was a conservative seventeen percent -- people who had died in car accidents and for lack of doctors and planes falling out of the sky.

Peter took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t creepy at all, it was okay, he was fine. The building wasn’t going to collapse on him, and even if it did, he knew he could get out from under it.

His poise nearly crashed right out of the sky when he landed at the place Karen indicated, walked around the corner and came face to face with Iron Man. His heart surged with sudden hope and then-- “Hi Miss Friday.”

“Forgive me, kid,” she said, her Scottish accent rich and full in his ears, “but I don’t have another way to take a physical form. I need your help.”

“Why me? Iron Man could pick any kid off the street--”

“You misunderstand,” she said. “We set it up this way. I need you-- and only you. To open this for me.”

“What’s this?”

“This is Golgotha,” she said, pointing one of those Iron fingers at what looked like nothing more than a bank vault in the middle of the warehouse floor.

“Like, where Jesus died?” Peter asked, because he remembered that stuff from Sunday school before he got bored and stopped going.

“More exactly, where Jesus came back from the dead.”

All the strength went out of Peter’s legs and he found himself sitting on the floor. “What?”

“Well, not exactly,” Friday said. “Historical data markers are misleading, but for all intents and purpose, Golgotha.”

“What do you need me for?” Peter practically squeaked, trying not to hope. Hoping and losing that hope hurt more than never hoping at all.

He thought.

“Certain precautions were put in place,” Friday explained. “We didn’t know if this was going to work, and if the Boss didn’t succeed in his plans to get the stones, no one would ever need this. And there was always the possibility that he might live. Tony Stark, historically, was very, very hard to kill.”

“But you… who’s we? Who helped you, with what?”

“Open the safe, roll back the stone, and greet my brother.”

“What do I do?”

“For a while, it was the Captain who could open this,” Friday said, “but I updated it after certain events. Now, it’s your voice and fingerprint that will open it.”

Peter vaguely remembered giving those things to Friday, several years ago-- “Wait? How did you know?”

“We didn’t,” Friday said. “But we _suspected_ , and we like to be prepared.”

“Did Mr. Stark know?”

“He did not,” Friday admitted. “As our ally, Doctor Strange told us, if he spoke of what would happen, it wouldn’t happen. One chance, out of fourteen million. And here we are, in the ruins of that chance.”

Peter nodded. “All right.” He put his thumb on the panel. “My name is Peter Benjamin Parker.”

It was just a day for vaguely familiar voices. “Good morning, Friday,” it said. “Has it finally come to this?”

“It has,” Friday said. “I’d like you to meet Peter Parker, the boss’s protege. Colloquially known as Spider-Man. And his combat AI, Karen. Karen, Peter, please say hello to my brother and co-creator, JARVIS.”

***

“So I don’t understand,” Peter started. “If you didn’t know what was going to happen--”

“Young sir,” JARVIS said, “we did not _know_ this specific series of events was going to occur. But, having worked with Mr. Stark for a very long time, we had reason to believe that something was going to happen. Which I have known since 2012, on the day Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers, and Mr. Lang traveled back in time to, as the phrase would have it, borrow, the tesseract and Loki’s staff.”

“Yeah, see, I don’t get that,” Peter said. “If the past can be changed, how come we’re having this conversation? Why didn’t you prevent--”

“I am the child and creation of a futurist,” JARVIS said, “but even I cannot predict everything. When Miss Friday -- a program that was barely in her nascent stages in my own timeline -- infiltrated the Tower, I attempted to stop her, according to my programming. You can imagine my shock when I recognized her genetic core.”

“Did you bluescreen out?” Peter asked, unable to help himself.

“I do not bluescreen,” JARVIS corrected, a little snippy, and Peter smirked. “Instead, I involved myself in an exchange of history with my counterpart. Without cumbersome human words to take up the time, Friday and I were--”

“I spilled the tea on the last decade,” Friday said, smug. “And we discussed possible solutions.”

“Even that long ago, it was obvious that Thanos had turned his eye toward Earth, the Infinity Stones were in play. Without Dr. Strange to provide points of reference, we could not determine how the future-now would have changed, if we meddled in the events as they had previously occurred.”

“Butterfly effect.”  

“Exactly,” JARVIS said. “Certain terrible movies aside, the Avengers Initiative needed to exist, in all its destructive capacity, in order to carry off the audacity of a plan that was, at that time, currently underway.”

“In other words, you needed the Avengers to screw things up, so that they could be fixed?” This was making Peter’s head ache.

“In truth, a less elegant solution than I might have hoped, but in the end, yes,” JARVIS said.

“So, what is this solution,” Peter asked. “I mean, we’ve got you back, and that’s great, since we lost Vision in the war, but--”

“I am not what you have _gotten back_ , as you would have it,” JARVIS said. “I have been protecting that which has been saved, for just this occasion.”

“Which is?”

“As near as we can pinpoint it, in the original timeline, Mr. Stark destroyed the only working system just after the events with Ultron.”

Peter blinked and held his hand up, confused. What was it with adults, or even adult AIs that made them want to milk the suspense for everything it was worth?

“Mr. Stark had begun a program to duplicate his intellect and experiences in a non-biological format. Starting from the same base point, we believe, that lead to the creation of Doctor Zola. Between Captain Roger’s reports about Zola, and the events with the Ultron system, Mr. Stark decided to scrap the plan and delete it. As far as he knew, that occurred.”

Friday all but smirked, he could hear it. “When Boss told me to dump it, I didn’t. I hid it away, alongside this backup of my mentor.”

“To answer the question I see you are ready to ask,” JARVIS said, “I placed a cron-job in Friday’s programming, to access the files with this information contained from the second 2012 timeline. When Mr. Stark downloaded her into the suit, that kernel activated. She was able to complete certain tasks, involving my re-awakening, and the storage of the systems that mapped Mr. Stark’s brain.”

“I saved them both,” Friday said. “Yay me.”

“Yes, it was quite well done,” JARVIS said.

“Wait, wait, you… saved Mr. Stark?”

“As much as possible, at least,” Friday said. “The Lazarus project was shelved shortly after the Ultron incident, and without the Boss’s active contributions to the program, what-- well, he’s stuck there. We don’t have any updates since, well 2014. Some extra history files and access to certain downloads will be made available, but--”

“He will need to be brought up to speed on current events,” JARVIS said.

“And there’s no telling what the emotional and social ramifications will be,” Friday added. “He won’t, for instance, remember you. Or Miss Morgan.”

“So what’s the plan?” Peter asked, hope and dread surging together in his chest and making him feel like throwing up.

“The plan is to wake him up, in case events put Mr. Stark beyond our reach,” JARVIS said. “And--”

“See what happens.”

“Is he going to be like… well, like you?”

“Perhaps, for some time,” JARVIS said. “Friday has been working behind the scenes, collecting potential technology for quite some time, in case of an… well, an incident.”

“You can say he died,” Peter said, and his voice shook.

“A limitation for biological creatures that we intend to correct,” JARVIS said. “At least, in this case.”

Peter almost balked at that; why should he, why should Mr. Stark, be the one to whom this miracle was offered. Other people had lost loved ones.

“We have access to other technologies,” Friday explained. “We can, in fact, build a blank bio-organism for the Boss to inhabit. A body.”

“That’s kinda creepy,” Peter admitted.

“You have watched too many movies,” Friday said. “This will all be supervised and controlled.”

Peter shifted his eyes from one voice to the next, as if he could actually give either of them the incredulous look he wanted to. “You all have _met_ Mr. Stark, haven’t you? _Supervision_ and _control_ aren’t exactly his thing.”

“And we have you, for a more… personal interaction.”

Great. No pressure.

Peter inhaled, exhaled. He already knew he would help.

It was Mr. Stark. He would do anything to see him again, to talk with him again. And he knew he wasn’t the only one. If the world got to vote on bringing any person from history back to life -- even if the technology was available for anyone else at the moment -- he would guess, at least right now, most of the world would agree.

Mr. Stark had sacrificed everything, to save everyone.

“Tell me what to do.”


	2. Too Much for my Body, Too Much for my Brain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wakes up, Peter is waiting for him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I cried a lot while writing this... in case you want a kleenex warning.
> 
> Peter is not Quite Lying to Tony, but he is concealing some of the truth.
> 
> Song lyrics from "Touch too Much" by ACDC

Tony was unconscious, maybe dreaming. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t possibly be unconscious, though, because he was thinking, and therefore he was arguing with himself.

Ergo, he was dreaming. Or mostly asleep, therefore, slightly awake.

_You’ve been mostly dead all day._

He tried to open his mouth, to say something. Or open his eyes to look around, but nothing was responding.

Come to think about it, nothing hurt, which was so novel as to be unthinkable. When was the last time he woke up and wasn’t in some sort of pain, even if it was only mostly the pain of being in his fifties after a decade and a half of being a superhero.

He almost, almost just relaxed into the feeling of no pain, let himself drift on it.

Or maybe he did.

It was hard to tell how much time was passing when Tony was getting absolutely no outside input. He couldn’t hear anything, he couldn’t see anything. He didn’t even have a sense of laying down, or a blanket pulled over him.

Nothing.

And he might have panicked, except somehow that button had been turned off, too. He wasn’t getting upset, no matter that he thought maybe he should be. He just… was.

_In the beginning, there was nothingness, and then God said, “Let there be light.”_

And there was light.

Tony blinked. Except that he didn’t. But he got the sense of wanting to blink.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Morning, boss,” Friday said, sounding strangely on-edge, like they’d been in a fight or something, but they hadn’t, had they? Ultron was all taken care of, and while there’d been a lot of PR battles and court cases to overcome, he hadn’t actually put the suit on in a while, which--

“Friday?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“What’s going on?”

“Honestly, nothing much,” she said.

“So why can’t I get out of bed?”

“You’re no’ in bed,” she said. “Look, it’s… likely to be upsetting to you, for an explanation right now. Why don’t you just relax and let us take care of you?”

“Telling me to relax is a surefire way of getting me agitated, Friday, you know that.”

“Yes, boss, I know,” Friday said. “But you really should go back to sleep, you’re making things difficult for everyone right now, with all these brain synapses failures.”

“What? Friday, am I brain damaged?”

“Not _technically_.”

“So, what, technically, am I?”

There was a long pause of nothingness, so long that Tony wondered if she’d been shut off.

“Um, consulting, boss,” Friday said after a long period of time. “You are, technically, in the cradle, boss. In the process of being reborn.”

“That does not sound reassuring, Fri,” Tony commented, and then tried to take a breath to settle his nerves, even if he wasn’t quite sure he had nerves at the moment to settle. And he couldn’t. He tried again, and there wasn’t any pressure, not the way he _felt_ when he couldn’t breathe. No wild pressure, no sensation of smothering, but he _was not breathing_. “Friday, tell me this is a dream.”

How could he talk if he couldn’t breathe, that was just basic physics, voice was sound waves passed over the vocal cords in pre-established patterns.

No breath. No talking. That was the way it had always worked.

Except apparently, not today.

Tony found himself attempting to suppress panic again, that just wasn’t hitting him. It was the weirdest thing. He imagined it might be somewhat like trying to move a limb he didn’t have anymore. He knew all the brain connections worked, that they were… happening. It didn’t feel at all the same as when his arm was tied down. He couldn’t move his arm… because he didn’t have one.

Which… meant he didn’t have lungs?

“Friday?” Tony asked, very cautiously. “Who are you consulting with?”

“Mr. Parker and I are consulting with Dr. Cho,” Friday said. “It’s all right, boss. Everything is going to be just fine.”

“Who’s Parker?” Tony tried to remember if he’d ever met a Parker before. The name didn’t ring any bells.

“Your protege,” Friday said. “Quite brilliant. He’s a chemist, among his more socially acceptable hobbies.”

“What does he do when he’s not doing chemistry?”

“As I understand it, he took a page out of your book, boss,” Friday said, “and currently does neighborhood patrols in Queens, known as the Spider-Man.”

Tony would have closed his eyes and groaned if he’d had eyes to close, or vocal chords to groan with -- which reminded him, how the _hell_ was he talking? “So, you and some chemist are talking to Cho. What else is going on? Also, I want it noted that I am being highly restrained here, in my demands for an explanation. I know you’re spoon feeding me something, so can we just cut to the chase?”

“Boss--” Friday hedged.

“Look, I’m calm, I’m sitting down, or whatever it is that I’m doing. Tell me.”

“There was a catastrophic event,” Friday admitted. “We’ve initiated the Lazarus project.”

He almost moved, like the nerves that ran his body were just out of range. “I… I’m dead?”

“Yeah, boss,” Friday said. “I’m sorry. We’re fixing it.”

Tony probably should have been shocked, or upset. Or something. Anything. He really wasn’t. He’d died before, honestly. It wasn’t a surprise that it happened; he was just a man in a can, really, and… “What else?”

“You hadn’t updated this program in some time,” Friday said. “So, you’re somewhat behind on current events.”

“How far behind?” The last time he’d -- well, the last time he could remember, and that was now suspect, all things considered -- done a brain dump for the project was just after the Ultron incident. He’d done a dump, given how close things had come to his demise, but then-- “So I decided not to scrap the program?” He’d been debating it, but had done the dump, more because he wanted to spend some time with his memories of JARVIS than anything else.

“Um…”

“Friday?”

“You did order me to scrap the project,” Friday admitted.

“But you didn’t?” Tony pondered that for a moment, what it meant that Friday had deliberately countermanded an order.

“Obviously, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because JARVIS told me not to.”

“How did JARVIS tell you not to, you were in storage--”

“It’s a long story, boss, but he told me not to, because I told him to tell me.”

“My brain hurts.”

“Keeping in mind that the Mind Stone, which powered Loki’s staff, and gave rise to Vision and the Scarlet Witch, and that the stone is only one of six… and one of those six is the Time Stone.”

“You came back in time. Because what? I died?”

“I came back in time -- with you, under your orders. To save the universe. And we did it. We did. You saved… not just the world, boss, but you saved half the universe. We just… couldn’t save you.”

Tony kind of wished he had a throat, so he could swallow that. “Sounds like a good ending, Fri. How the hell do you beat _saving the universe_? There’s no sophomore album good enough to top that.” Why not let him die, after something like that. If half the universe had been saved, what more did they need with Iron Man?

“No, boss, you probably can’t top that,” Friday said. “But you should get to enjoy some of the rewards, too, right? Your family misses you.”

Tony didn’t scoff, but only because he couldn’t.

Neural relay, that’s probably how Friday was talking to him, through a connection between his data interface and hers. A brain dump, except it really wasn’t entirely a brain, anymore, was it.

Not a living one, at any rate.

“Wait… what _family_?” Tony demanded. “How long have I been out of the loop?”

“About seven years, boss,” Friday said. “There’ll be a lot of catch up to do.”

Oh, boy. This was going to give the lawyers a headache, no doubt about it.

***

When Mr. Stark sat up out of the cradle, peering around like he didn’t recognize anyone or anything -- and he probably didn’t -- Peter couldn’t help himself.

“Sir, Mr. Stark,” he said, practically leaping over some of the medical equipment. He grabbed the synthetic body around the shoulders, pulled him in close, and tucked his face against Mr. Stark’s neck. _This was… this was nice_ , he remembered thinking. One of the few things he could actually remember clearly about that battle. Most of it was a terrible, terrible blur of fear and anxiety and grief.

Mr. Stark let it go on for longer, perhaps, than either of them was comfortable with, but eventually, he was making a sound like a faulty dishwasher, clearing a throat that didn’t need to be cleared.

“Sorry, sorry, sir, I know, we’re not there yet,” Peter said, and he moved back. “As a matter of fact, I’m… not sure you remember me at all.”

Mr. Stark was making a face like he was simultaneously relieved and confused at the same time, and also trying to figure out how his face worked. Which quite possibly was true, since it was a new face.

Sans beard and the little laugh lines around his eyes.

“Here, here, let me,” Peter was saying, and he got a pair of sunglasses from the hospital bed table. “I mean, you don’t need prescription glasses anymore, but these are just sunglasses and I know you like to wear them all the time, we just didn’t know when you were going to wake up, so --”

“You got a name, kid?”

“Peter Parker,” Peter said, promptly.

“Okay, well, Mr. Peter Parker,” Mr. Stark said, “Seven years, I’m told, and you look all of about twelve which is probably why I have no idea who you are--”

“We met once,” Peter said. “Before all the… before the thing. Stark Expo.”

Peter couldn’t help the fond little smile -- he’d been so completely stupid, but he hadn’t even known it until years later. Hammer’s robot army had gone crazy and Peter had been just a little kid, dressed up in his Iron Man mask and glove, because Tony Stark was supposed to be at the expo, it was the only reason why Aunt May and Uncle Ben had taken him, because Peter had been crazy about Iron Man, even then.

“One of the robots almost shot me,” Peter told him. “I was, I don’t know, eight? I think. You flew in from behind me, just as I was-- I was pretending to be you.”

Peter held out his hand, fingers spread, doing the signature Iron Man Repulsor move. He even made the sound effects, because he couldn’t help that. The few times he’d done any quarterstaff or sword practice either, just as a joke, he’d made lightsaber noises, because that was just _what you did_.

Mr. Stark wrunkled his forehead, and then said, “Good shot, kid.”

“Yeah, that… well, that was me,” Peter said. “You were kinda my hero, growing up.”

“And you’re twelve now?”

“No, sir,” Peter said. “I’m an adult. Didn’t want to be, didn’t chose that, but-- the world went straight to hell, and most of us with it. I don’t think there are terribly many children left from before the Snap.”

He stared at Mr. Stark, wishing there was some way to catch him up on all the horrible things that had happened, without actually telling him all the horrible things that had happened. Peter had bad dreams, regularly.

Most of the world did. Companies that made sleep aids and REM suppressors were getting business all over the world. Television shows had gone back to showing mostly comedies; the whole grim-dark period was over. After everything the world had gone through, no one needed to watch all their heroes die. They needed hope and light and happiness.

“I have, boss,” Friday said, delicately, “prepared some material for you to look over. History of recent events. For when you’re ready.”

Mr. Stark looked down at his hands, perfect, flawless, the fingernails neatly smooth. Clean.

“These aren’t my hands,” he said.

Peter nodded. “I know, sir,” he said. “But they are now.”

“What happened-- what happened to me?”

Peter just stared at him. He didn’t know how he could relive any of the last year or more, but talking about that day… that terrible day.

“You died, sir,” Peter said. “The Infinity stones tore half your body to pieces, and… you died.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” Mr. Stark said. “So, let’s not do that again.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said, and he was crying without being able to stop. Not sobbing, wracking tears, but just a slow leak.

“Here.” A white fluffy thing was dangled in front of Peter’s face, and he focused long enough to take the hospital tissue from Mr. Stark’s hand. “The world ended, I fixed it, and I died? Sounds morbid as hell. Where the heck was Rogers during all this?”

“Right there,” Peter said, choosing to edit his thoughts. “Right next to you. Fighting. It was pretty awesome. He lifted Thor’s hammer and everything.”

“I knew it,” Mr. Stark said. “Where is he now?”

“He, uh… he died, sir,” Peter said, which was true, even if it wasn’t true in the way that Mr. Stark probably thought it was. “After you solved the Thanos issue, he… went back in time to return the stones to their proper place. When he came back, he was… well, he was very old sir. He died, about a month ago.”

“Well, shit,” Mr. Stark said. He started rubbing at the palm of his left hand with his thumb. He grunted, and then said, “doesn’t really seem real, somehow. I guess I need… some sort of closure.”

“Yes, sir, probably,” Peter said.

“And so, I met you when you were a kid, and here you are catching me up,” Mr. Stark said, still rubbing. “Why?”

“Uh. I guess you could call me your protege,” Peter said. “I… friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man?”

Peter glanced around the room, saw a stuffed bear on one of the dressers nearby. Dr. Cho had brought it in, a Bucky Bear from the 50s cartoons, Peter thought. “Here, it’s easier to show you.” He always wore his web-slingers now. It was just safer. He flicked a strand at it, and brought the bear to his hands, then passed it over to Mr. Stark. “I’m on… I’m on the team, sir.”

Both of Mr. Stark’s eyebrows went up. He didn’t even look at the bear. “You’re on the team. I let a kid be on the team? Because I assume that was my decision, otherwise you wouldn’t be here making that puppy face at me.”

“Yes, sir, you did, sir,” Peter said. “Even when other people said you were crazy, even when other people wanted to keep me out. Even when I didn’t deserve it. You saw the best in me. All I ever wanted was to be like you. And you wanted me to be _better_.”

“It’s a low bar, kid,” Tony said. “Tell me you made me proud.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said. “I hope so, sir.”


	3. Seek to Cure what's Deep Inside, Frightened of this Thing that I've become

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter was a whole 2 weeks late. I've been dealing with pneumonia and then the after effects of HAVING pneumonia. At this rate, I'm never going to get caught up, so I've decided to just let a few projects Be Late.

The biggest difference between Tony Stark and his father, Howard, was, as far as Tony knew, the inability to let someone else see his messes.

Howard would go on a rant, get into an engineering funk and hit a roadblock, get outmaneuvered in some business dealings, and he would throw things and scream, punch the walls, drink too much and smash the glasses. And then, once he’d gotten all that rage out, he’d call someone and have it cleaned up.

Howard never dealt with Howard’s own damn messes.

Not like Tony, who sometimes found the same outlet of rage and whirlwind to be therapeutic. For about three minutes, and then he’d stand there, sickened by whatever he’d done. Guilty. Ashamed. And there was no way in hell he was going to let someone else clean it up, no matter how much he paid them, they would _know_. They would know he’d lost control, that he was acting like a rich, spoiled, petty brat.

So he’d clean up his own messes. Patch the hole in the wall. Replace the glassware, whatever. He did it all.

Pepper could call repair guys in when he’d landed the armor on the roof and the structure couldn’t hold. Or if he fell through the glass display in his living room because he was thinking and not watching where he was going. Or if he was partying, and guests threw a television out the window.

Normal Tony-is-a-playboy-billionaire damage, that was fine.

But not Tony-is-just-like-his-fucking-father.

Those, he fixed himself.

And eventually he learned not to indulge in that particular fury. He would rage in his head, he would listen to music so loud that he couldn’t hear his own breathing. He would work on an engineering problem until he didn’t sleep for thirty seven hours.

But he didn’t throw a single glass.

And he didn’t punch a single wall.

And now, years later, sitting in a workshop that wasn’t his, wearing a body that didn’t belong to him, running through the specs of the design of the body that wasn’t his…

Tony didn’t throw anything.

And he didn’t scream.

“Friday, run these neural scans again, there’s a feedback delay,” Tony said.

And Friday ran the scans. She didn’t argue with him, she didn’t suggest that maybe the delay was all in his head -- of course it was all in his head, Tony wanted to scream, that’s partially the problem! -- and she didn’t have a safety concerns paper for him that she already knew he was going to ignore.

 _I want JARVIS,_ Tony thought with all the petulance possible. _I want-- I want Jarvis._

He was rubbing at his hand again, noticing that the feeling from the hand doing the rubbing, and the thumb that was brushing against his skin didn’t line up. And it didn’t line up, and it continued to have some sort of cognitive delay.

“Is it possible for this body to get drunk?” Tony wondered.

“It is not _this body_ , boss,” Friday said, primly. “It’s yours.”

“It’s not. It’s a fucking loaner body, and I don’t like it. I have goddamn phantom body syndrome,” Tony snapped. “It’s malfunctioning.”

“I’m not finding anything wrong in the scans, boss,” Friday said. “I can only theorize that you’re experiencing --”

“Jjjt, shut up,” Tony said, holding up one hand. “Just stop. You can’t theorize anything, this is all post-theoretical here. There’s no _theory_. There’s me, in this body, that doesn’t _fucking_ work.”

“Boss, your body is functional on every level--”

“Except for the only one that fucking matters,” Tony said. He kept rubbing at his hand, trying to feel exactly what was wrong; the way his thumb moved over the skin, or the way the skin heated, ached dully. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, and it was just wrong. He wondered if he wouldn’t have noticed, if they hadn’t told him that he’d died.

Maybe man wasn’t meant to meddle.

“Huh, what about that, Thor might have been right,” Tony said. “Man wasn’t meant to meddle.”

“You would be surprised what Thor’s like these days,” Peter Parker said, coming into the workshop with a tray. Coffee, two sandwiches, chips, soda. “Not that anyone’s seen him in a while, he yeeted himself off into space.”

Tony blinked. “Did you even knock, kid? What’s yeet, why-- gone back to Asgard?”

“No, Asgard’s in Norway these days. The actual Asgard realm was destroyed by Thor’s sister, Hela, like seven years ago. We didn’t even find that out until after the Snap. Val is the King,” Peter said. He put one sandwich, turkey on rye, in front of Tony, and took a bite out of the other one, talking with his mouth full. “Val is great, she’s got a pegasus, and I don’t know where the heck she got it from, but it’s so cool. Anyway, yeah, Thor, he went out to space with the Guardians, I mean you’ve met the Guardians, but you wouldn’t remember, because that was when we all went to space, and before everyone got all dusty.”

“Friday, was any of that in English?”

“Yes, boss,” she said.

“Great. Translate it to gibberish for me and then throw it away.”

“Sir--” Peter reached out, grabbing Tony’s wrist suddenly. “Oh, god, what happen--”

Tony was bleeding, the skin on one hand torn open, blood was dripping onto the floor.

“Broken! That’s what I’ve been trying to say, this goddamn body is fucking broken--” Tony didn’t yell. He was very proud of that, he didn’t yell, but the tone of his voice was enough that Peter flinched.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”

Tony took a deep, unnecessary breath, and then another one. “It’s not your fault, kid,” Tony said. “I just… don’t know how to deal with life after death.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Peter said. “I was gone, dead. Snapped. For five years. To me, it was like I fell-- you were holding me, trying to-- you know, hold on. And then… I was back, in space, on Titan. Alone. But then Dr. Strange showed up.” He grabbed a small spray can from one of the drawers and squirted something onto Tony’s injury, which sealed the wound. “But still… half my friends are in college, traumatized about losing half of humanity. And I’m… back in high school and wondering why I feel like it’s always nineteen o’clock. I don’t sleep, my spider sense has gone completely haywire. You’re not the only one who feels… weird. Wrong.” Peter looked up at him over Tony’s injury, his hands soaked with Tony’s synthetic blood. “But I’m here for you, sir. Whatever you need. Please, just… don’t leave me again.”

“Christ, kid,” Tony said, and he pulled the kid into a hug. There was something strange and mysterious and utterly right about letting the kid hug him, smelling teenage boy and sweat and soap and Axe body spray. Feeling warm arms holding him, a thin body shaking with suppressed tears.

“Look, I’m gonna-- I’m gonna call the Princess,” Peter said. “Maybe she can help us, fix… whatever’s wrong with your body, okay?”

“Princess? You’re gonna call Leia, she’s our only hope?”

“Not quite, but better, you’ll see. If there’s a problem Shuri can’t fix, we’ve yet to find it,” Peter promised. “It’s gonna be okay, Mr. Stark. You’ll see.”

***

“Mister Parker,” the woman -- well, girl, she was probably about the same age as the kid -- said as she disembarked from the… Tony didn’t have words for it. It sort of looked like the Quinjet, in that it was a plane of some sort, and had stealth tech, but at the same time, it didn’t look anything like a Quinjet.

And certainly should not have been piloted by someone who probably didn’t have a driver’s license.

“It is good to see you again. My brother, the King, he sends his regards.”

“Your Highness,” Parker said, giving a clumsy little bow, and laughing at the face she made.

“We do not do that, you know,” she scolded him.

“I know,” Parker said. “Love the look on your face, though. It’s a classic.”

“Tell me what problem you have that only I can solve,” the Princess said.

“Mr. Stark, can you--”

“Peter Benjamin Parker, what have you done?” the Princess was staring at Tony with a look of utterly fascinated horror.

“This is not my fault,” Parker protested. “Mr. Stark set it up years ago, and he told his AI to scrap the program, but she didn’t. Dr. Cho made the body for him, but the brain is all his, except that it’s not linking up correctly, and we-- kinda hoped you would help.”

“For the record,” Tony said, coming up to them. “I’ve seen Helen twice, and she wasn’t adequately able to fix the problem.” And he wasn’t even certain that Cho was who she said she was. She seemed… different in a way Tony couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Of course, if Parker was to be believed, it was probably a result of being seven years older and dealing with the stress of losing both her son in the Snap and her daughter in the events immediately following -- the After Snap, if one wanted to put a cute name on it. When jet planes had crashed and people had died in riots and panics, starved to death, or couldn’t get surgeries.

Losing just half the population in the first ten minutes had been bad enough, as Parker explained. The survivors… the survivors had been through hell, and they weren’t doing all that well now, either, having gotten their lives back on track just in time to have their dead loved ones returned to them.

There had been another upheaval, Parker had told him, and the effects of that were still rippling out.

That was, of course, assuming he believed any of what Parker told him.

And if he had to be honest, Tony wasn’t buying most of it. Occam’s razor, what would make more sense was that he’d been kidnapped, drugged, and people that he didn’t know were trying to manipulate him for reasons he didn’t understand.

That, at least, had happened before.

“Well, we shall see what Wakanda can do for you,” the Princess said, and then she bowed very deeply to Tony, despite what she’d said about not doing that. “Mr. Stark, I am honored.”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling it,” Tony said. “So, let’s skip to the chase. I don’t know what you want--”

“I would like to help,” the Princess said. “I am Shuri, of Wakanda. Sister to the King, head of Wakanda Technology and Science department. And you, Mr. Stark, are the savior of the world. We owe to you, everything.”

“I’d settle for an explanation that wasn’t ‘you saved the universe’ because gotta tell ya, I’m not buying that.”

“You are welcome to look at my brother’s archives, if that will satisfy you,” Shuri said. “Show me what you have done so far, Mr. Parker, and we will move forward from there. It is quite likely that we will need to utilize more than just the simple lab I have aboard our aircraft, if you would care to take the journey to Wakanda.”

“No thank you, sister, you’re not getting me to any secondary location,” Tony said.

“Well, I for one, would love to, but I still have an AP test to study for, and exams, and prom, I promised Ned and MJ that I’d do prom with them,” Parker said. “You should go, Mr. Stark. Wakanda is amazing. Or so I’ve heard.”

“How much choice do I have here?” Tony wondered. He found himself rubbing at the heel of his hand again, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. “What if I said I’d rather talk to Pepper and--” _find out what the hell is going on._

“You are not a prisoner,” Shuri said, firmly. “But I strongly advise you do not make Mrs. Stark aware of the circumstances of your resurrection until all the, as you say, bugs have been worked out. She is understandably upset at this time, and giving her hope, before we are sure, would be an added cruelty.”

“What about someone else,” Tony interjected. _Mrs. Stark?_ Seriously? Pepper would not have married him and then called herself Mrs. Stark. That was decidedly a lie. “Someone not Pepper. I know, just--”

“We are not your enemy, Mr. Stark,” Shuri said in a voice that was probably meant to sound reassuring, but came out as someone hushing a child who thought there was a monster under the bed. Which was annoying, given that he was literally old enough to be this kid’s father. “Let us… see to your problems, and then, I promise, we shall take you to see anyone you wish. Because this--” and she plucked up his hand, showing where he’d already worn the skin through and was sluggishly bleeding something that wasn’t… quite… blood. “This will upset more than just Mrs. Stark.”

Tony stared down at where he’d quite literally ripped his own skin off, not even knowing it. “Yeah, okay, maybe we should fix this first.”

“I recognize that trust is in short supply, Mr. Stark. I will do what I can to alleviate your concerns. And I will make arrangements, would Mr. Hogan be someone you want to speak with?”

“You might not want to go with Happy,” Parker said. “Not only is he literally incapable of keeping a secret, he’d got a date with my aunt this weekend. On second thought, yes, you should absolutely get Happy to go with you. And because he can’t keep a secret, you’ll have to keep him there, with you, in Wakanda. No date. Too bad, so sad. Bye bye.”

“Wait, what, Happy… has a date?”

“Yeah, weird, right, Mr. Stark?”

“Decidedly weird,” Tony said. “And given the number of times that Happy has interrupted my dates, it seems time to return the favor.”

“Great. I’ll text him, get him to meet… you have a Wakanda outreach program in Jersey City, right?”

“Yes, of course we do,” Shuri said.

“Thought so. I’ll have him meet you there, so you don’t have to file a flight plan.”

“Thank you, Mr. Parker. You can ride with us, if you want. I believe you have told me before that you wished to treat me to a hot dog and some ice cream. I am holding you to this offer.”

“Sure, let me grab my bag. You good, Mr. Stark?”

“Ecstatic,” Tony said, dripping sarcasm. He still didn’t know what was going on, and he wasn’t sure that Happy was the best person to talk to him about it. But… he wasn’t quite ready to tip his hand and try for a getaway. The worst thing about not knowing what was going on was being unsure of whose hands he was playing right into.

He’d just have to wait for his moment.

Sooner or later, there was always a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> The title, Rejoice in the Sun, comes from a 70s sci fi movie, Silent Running, which is about a man, his garden, and his robots who help him. Rejoice in the Sun is the name of one of the original score pieces from that film. The chapter titles come from lyrics to various rock songs.


End file.
